Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Charles Sorley and the Poetry of World War I

By mid-1915, the
Great War in Europe had become stalemated on the western front. Both sides had
hunkered down in the hundreds of miles of trenches dug across French and
Belgian countryside.

In September,
British and French forces attempted a game-changing attack. On Sept. 25, they
launched an attack at what came to be known as the Battle of Loos. For two
weeks, the battle flowed and ebbed. The battle was notable for the tunneling
operations the British undertook under No Man’s Land to plant bombs and the use
of poison gas by the British for the first time (the Germans had already used
it). The combined British and French forces came close to victory on the battle’s
first day, Sept. 25, but the Germans counterattacked and by Oct. 8, when the
battle officially needed, has recovered all lost ground.

More than 59,000
British soldiers died in the battle, compared to between 26,000 and 29,000
German soldiers. It was a staggering loss of men – about one fourth of all the
British soldiers who died in the entire war. One of the British casualties was
poet Charles
Sorley (1895-1915).

A Light Shining

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Professional writer exploring faith and culture, life and work; happily married to Janet, the love of my life; father of two grown sons. Award-winning speechwriter and communication consultant. I am also a contributing editor for The High Calling and for TweetSpeak Poetry. I am also the author of the novels "Dancing Priest" and "A Light Shining," and the non-fiction book "Poetry at Work."